“You’re expansive tonight.”
“Frustrated and taking it out on you. Feeling outside of everything,” said Renfrow.
“You? I don’t know where my family are, let alone what they’re doing. The same for the Shining Ones.”
“The Choosers are your guardian angels. Everyone else is at work trying to eliminate the Windwalker’s brothers and cousins.”
“Easy.” The lifeguards were close.
“If you say so.”
“That’s why I’ve had no contact? They’re tied up in a big struggle?”
“Unless they’re fooling us all.”
“And the ascendant? I haven’t seen him, either,” said Hecht.
“I suppose. Though I thought you gave him a job.”
“Sort of. But he doesn’t seem to get the team play concept.”
Renfrow grunted. He was done talking. He turned aside and vanished into shadows. One lifeguard asked, “How did he do that?”
“What?”
“He walked into that shadow and didn’t come out the other side.”
“I don’t know. Maybe sorcery. Let’s get out of here.”
No one argued.
* * *
The following month was a lonely one. Hecht felt isolated even with his oldest intimates. They sensed his mood but understood it no better than he did. Titus Consent, who went back furthest of any, valiantly strove to break through. He did get Hecht talking enough to admit that his moroseness was becoming a problem.
“Boss, we can get along without you micromanaging. We like it that way. But outsiders need to see the Commander of the Righteous in charge. Just so the rest of us can feel comfortable, how about you pretend you’re interested when we have company?”
They were alone at the moment. Hecht had been brooding, about what he could not have said if asked. Somehow, by word or tone or triggered nostalgia, Consent got through.
“Am I really that…? Titus! I’ve become pathetic. How did that happen?”
“I couldn’t say. But since you’re here in my world for now, how about you tell me how to keep you here?”
Challenged, Hecht determined to conquer his malaise. “I can’t explain because I don’t know, Titus. I for sure don’t like it.” He caught himself digging at his left wrist, trying to kill a vicious itch. His wrist was raw, moist some places, scabbed elsewhere. “This is driving me crazy, too. I should get something on it before it festers.”
“We’ll need an itch balm or you’ll scratch till your hand falls off.”
What he needed was to be rid of the amulet, which supposedly caused itching only when he was close to some serious Instrumentality. But it itched all the time anymore.
Could a Rudenes Schneidel sort, or something like Vrislakis, be tweaking the amulet to distract him? Maybe hoping he would shed it?
Titus said, “I know a poultice that should help.”
Hecht grunted.
“Whenever you’re mentally present you dig at your wrist. But when you go surly and start studying your own belly button you leave it alone.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. I’ll have the field doc do something as soon as I can.”
Hecht grumbled sullen assent.
“While I have you animated, do you have any thoughts on how we can pull you out of this melancholy?”
“If I did you’d be first to know. I don’t like what’s happening to me, either. I have to live through it.”
Consent flashed a smile. “We’re making progress already. You admit there’s a problem.”
The trouble was, even with his mind focused Hecht could make no sense of what was happening. “Track everything I eat and drink and anyone who gets close enough to touch me.”
“You think it might be poison?”
“They tried it on Katrin. But, no. Poison would be the hard way with me. I think it’s sorcery.”
He wished Cloven Februaren would turn up. That old man could break this open.
Titus said, “We need you sharp for your confabs with the Empress. Helspeth won’t be as tractable as Katrin.”
* * *
Just concentrating on the fact that he had mental problems helped Hecht manage them. He drank clean water from snow brought down from the Jagos. He ate vegetables boiled in that water. He ate boiled or roasted meats from freshly slaughtered carcasses, without spices. Only the most trusted cooks prepared his meals. He exercised every morning, usually by running with his staff.
The itching persisted.
Frequent anti-itching poultices helped only a little.
Hecht told Consent, “I’m determined to whip it.”
“Well, you have begun to make useful contributions to the process again.”
“When I don’t itch I can think.”
* * *
Hecht was in another bleak mood when a clerk reported, “A Grimmsson wants to see you, my Lord. He looks disreputable but his name is on the List.”
Twelve people were allowed access whenever they wanted. He had not informed most of them of that.
“Bring him,” his mood improving.
Grimmsson arrived. The clerk was right. He had not maintained his civilized look.
“So where the hell have you been?” Hecht demanded. “I have work for you to do.”
“I didn’t want Heris to go out there alone.”
“To take on Vrislakis and Zambakli?”
“Yes.”
“Did the old man, the Shining Ones, and my daughters abandon her?”
“No.”
“You had to be underfoot, too, to make it all work out?”
Grimmsson reddened. Nothing he said could make him look less silly than he did already. “Harsh, Commander, but emotionally true. That campaign will be over soon. Zambakli Souleater is no more. Vrislakis will be nothing but a foul recollection before long.”
“Excellent. I’ve had no help from any of you people for months.”
“You had help enough in Hovacol.”
“I admit I’m spoiled. But I do have real problems that only the Ninth Unknown can fix.”
“I should be available from now on,” clearly disappointed by Hecht’s lack of excitement about Zambakli.
Another major god was dead. Not just banished or imprisoned, extinguished. Forever. And the Commander of the Righteous had shown the world how that could be done.
Hecht asked, “You spent all that time away dealing with the Great Old Ones?”
Puzzled, “Pretty much, yes.”
“No side trips to the Connec? Say to Antieux?”
“You’ve lost me. I’m not sure I know where Antieux is.”
“You do know the name?”
“Of course. A lot of recent history involved that town.”
“A giant bird has been seen there recently.”
“I understand you asking, then. I plead not guilty.”
“Interesting. Another giant bird. Well. Not our problem. We have our own mission, coming on too fast.”
Grimmsson said, “You should have everyone back before long. You can go balls to the wall, then.”
That brightened Hecht’s mood a lot.
* * *
Heris turned up at midnight, two nights after the ascendant. She woke Hecht out of a dream about men hunting their traitor brother. She was excited and full of brags. Not only had she destroyed Kharoulke the Windwalker, eldest and ugliest of the Great Old Ones, she had been instrumental in exterminating Kharoulke’s whole pantheon. “Those horrible Instrumentalities are now extinct, by grace of the Twelfth Unknown.”
“They talked you into taking over for Delari?”
“Not yet. I’ve still got a lot to learn.”
“You aren’t exactly the priestly type.”
“But you are a smart-ass.”
“I blame my formative years.” He started scratching.
Heris frowned. “I can’t imagine a Sha-lug with a sense of humor.”
“In that you are correct, madam. They whip it out of you early, along with all the clutter of your prior life. I meant Piper Hecht’s formative years. Before the powers that be turned him into a dynamic engine of conquest.”
They were alone in his sleeping quarters. They could be as silly or pompous as they liked. Heris said, “I’m not sure about you right now, little brother. Asgrimmur says your soul is in a grim place. You’ve been doing weird stuff. But you’re maiden silly tonight.”